


In My Room

by bunnoculars



Category: SHINee
Genre: Bottom Lee Taemin, M/M, Top Kim Jonghyun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 00:23:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20611844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnoculars/pseuds/bunnoculars
Summary: Taemin is moving out of the dorm. Jonghyun takes it badly.





	In My Room

There.

…Or not. Jonghyun flicks the vacuum back on and sticks the hose under Taemin’s bed one last time, just to be safe. His ears barely have time to hurt before he’s done again. Except Taemin’s bed is unmade. It has been since the last time Ahjumma washed the sheets, which was at least a week ago, and if Jonghyun leaves it Taemin will just go another week. It’ll take him two seconds to straighten the blanket, pull it over all Taemin’s crap. When Taemin unmakes it again he can figure out how to sleep in it.

Yeah, no. Jonghyun puts it all away. Every last fucking thing. Jonghyun counts three pairs of headphones and as he digs between the mattress and the bed frame to get the last one, he does not think of all three times Taemin asked him this month, _Have you seen my earbuds, hyung? I just had them._

But there. Right?

Whatever.

Jonghyun drags the vacuum into the hall closet and drags himself all the way to the couch in front of the TV. He drops onto it, burying his face in the leather and squeezing his eyes shut, but his world goes red and hot and angry instead of dark and cool and silent like it was supposed to. He has time. Hours before Taemin will get home, probably. Hours and hours to convince himself not to murder him. Hours and hours to figure out how to say it without begging or yelling. _It’s my room too, Taemin-ah. Your mess becomes my mess and then I’m the one who has to clean it up. Don’t you think about me at all? Think about me, please. Please._

“Anything good on?” Kibum says. Before Jonghyun can work up to replying, Kibum moves Jonghyun’s legs out of his way and drops down onto the couch.

That leaves Jonghyun to tell him, “Nothing. It’s off.”

“Aigoo. Give me the remote.”

Jonghyun could, but instead he says, “Didn’t you say you were going out?”

“I have thirty minutes to kill, so give it.” Kibum leans over to snatch it from Jonghyun. It’s not worth fighting over anyway, not like the seat Kibum took from Jonghyun’s feet is. When he pushes them into Kibum’s thigh Kibum doesn’t go anywhere, though, he just snaps at Jonghyun, “Your legs are short, you don’t need the whole couch to stretch out.” Kibum turns back to the TV. “Let’s see if Taeminnie’s show is on~”

We Got Married, he means. Great. The last thing Jonghyun needs is to watch Taemin play house after he was stuck dealing with the real thing all afternoon.

“Is that where he is, filming again?” As soon as it’s out of his mouth Jonghyun doesn’t want to hear the answer. “He came in after midnight and he was gone when I woke up.”

“You woke up at like three in the afternoon,” Kibum reminds Jonghyun impatiently, before he finds something Jonghyun wants to hear even less. “Him and Naeun-ssi are going to Myeongdong today.”

“I thought they were married, not dating.”

Kibum rolls his eyes at Jonghyun so hard he might sprain something. “Sounds like you’d make a great husband. You should’ve gone on the show instead.”

None of Jonghyun’s girlfriends have ever complained. None of them ever dumped him for being a shitty boyfriend, either, just for being one who’s never there, and that’s not him, that’s this job. Taemin, though…there’s a reason why he’s never lasted longer than six months with anyone, even with that face. Anyone meaning the one girl Taemin has dated in his entire life, but so what if his sample size is a lot smaller than Jonghyun’s, Jonghyun knows firsthand what it’s like. He’s shared a room with Taemin for five years and even shared a bed sometimes, he’s bought him food and driven him everywhere, stayed up with him some nights and held him until he fell asleep on others. He picks up Taemin’s towel from the bathroom floor every morning. Sorts his laundry. Folds it and puts it away half the time too. Cleans his fucking room. Keeps track of Taemin’s things and his schedules and how much sleep he’s getting and how much he needs to catch up on. Repeats every other thing he tells Taemin 5 million times, because Taemin doesn’t pay attention for the first 4,999,999 times. 

Everything a boyfriend would do besides actually dating Taemin, the point is. No, more like everything a husband would do. Besides sleeping with him. As in fucking him.

Jonghyun ignores the heat curling in his stomach and pushes his heels into Kibum’s thigh again. “Would it kill him to clean up after himself?”

Kibum shoots him a look in between flipping channels. “It obviously hasn’t killed you to do it, either, or I wouldn’t be stuck having this conversation.”

“I said one thing.”

“That you’ve said five million times before.”

“You don’t remember what it’s like sharing a room with him,” Jonghyun retorts, which brings him up to two things. But that’s nothing when, “He leaves his things everywhere and then he can’t find anything, it’s up to me to look. I have to check all his pockets, too, because he never remembers to take his phone out. Or his wallet. Or my lighter, which I let him borrow like four months ago. I found like ten pairs of his socks under my bed this time, too.”

“Wow, sounds like cleaning it up is worse than just living with it until he does,” Kibum says in a voice that’s dripping with boredom. “Just pile his shit on his side of the room and let him deal with it next time, hyung.” Jonghyun opens his mouth to point out that would take almost as much work, and he’d still have to look at it, which would still piss him off—“Well. If there is a next time.”

Jonghyun sits up.

“What?”

Now Kibum is looking at him like he’s stupid, TV totally forgotten. “Let Taeminnie take care of himself, hyung. Either that or stop whining.”

“Not that.” Jonghyun’s heart is doing this weird thing to him, hammering so hard he can barely hear himself think. “What do you mean if there’s a next time?”

“He hasn’t told you yet?” Kibum says instead of just fucking telling Jonghyun himself. “Weird. I figured he’d tell you first.”

“Tell me what?”

For one long moment Kibum scans Jonghyun’s face, like he’s double-checking to see whether the answer is already there. Maybe somehow he’s missed the part where Taemin has spent the last eight years of their lives forgetting to tell Jonghyun every important thing and then expecting him to know it all anyway.

Finally Kibum says, “That he’s moving out.”

Jonghyun back hits the couch again with a whump, knocking the breath out of him. The ceiling looks the exact same as it did before. If he went back to their room it would look the exact same too. Clean and quiet and empty, worlds apart from what it’s doing to Jonghyun’s insides, just asking for someone to mess it up again. Not Jonghyun and not right now, because that’d just be taking this out on himself. Taemin, over days and weeks and months, until Jonghyun can’t take it anymore and this exact same afternoon comes again, minus what Kibum just said.

It won’t, because Kibum said it. So Jonghyun is stuck lying here and not know what to think or feel or do, how to react, what to say. Kibum’s eyes are back on the screen, though, so it’s okay if Jonghyun turns over and closes his again, waits for the red to fade into black. For Kibum’s words to sink in. For this day to tick by. For Taemin to get back and make this make sense to Jonghyun. And even if it never does, for Taemin to move out, because Taemin is really moving out. This is really happening to Jonghyun. Soon he’ll really be alone.

Why the fuck does Taemin never tell Jonghyun _anything?_

Before Kibum leaves for his thing, he tells Jonghyun that Taemin isn’t going very far, as if he could, he’s only moving back in with his parents. He doesn’t need to tell Jonghyun all the ways that makes sense, Jonghyun has all day to do that to himself. The apartment Taemin bought for his parents is just as close to SM as the dorm is. When Taemin moved into the dorm he was still in high school, and once they debuted they all went months at a time without seeing their families. The only reason Taemin never cried himself to sleep at night that first year is because he shared a room with Jonghyun and the others, and he hates crying where anyone can see or hear him or hold him through it. The tears Taemin swallowed back then have probably built up inside him, and maybe going back home will clear them away. Jonghyun can’t do that for him, all he’s good for is clearing away Taemin’s junk. And that might as well be good for nothing, because it’s not like Taemin ever notices, or like Taemin doesn’t come home and mess every thing up again right away, or like Taemin ever says _thank you for cleaning, hyung~_ or _thank you for not going to bed even though I’m really late_ or _thank you for existing_ or even _you exist,_ or anything at all beyond, “I’m gonna change, don’t come in.” 

Jonghyun gives him five minutes and then follows the trail of Taemin’s socks into their room. He finds Taemin in sweats and a faded old T-shirt, sprawled out on his stomach, halfway through a bag of chips. Jonghyun discovered two stashed under his bed this afternoon. He should’ve fed them to Jinki.

Instead he’s asking Taemin as nicely as he can, “How was filming?”

“I don’t know,” Taemin replies with his mouth full.

“You don’t know?”

Taemin just grunts at him. 

“Did you eat?”

Taemin throws Jonghyun an impatient look. “I’m eating.”

“I meant dinner, Taeminnie.”

“There’s nothing in the fridge.”

Jonghyun’s stomach twists, that same red from before rising up again, but he ignores it, crossing the room and flopping onto his own bed. If Taemin just asked him, then he would’ve gone out into the kitchen instead and made something for him, ramyun probably. That’s not much but it’s more than Taemin can do on his own, apparently. And anyway, Taemin didn’t ask, he never asks, which is why Jonghyun is lying here with his face smashed into his pillow, counting his breaths, and why Taemin probably thinks Jonghyun would be just fine with being left behind.

When he thinks he’s ready to roll into the open air he’s pretty clearly wrong, because the first thing out of his mouth is, “Don’t eat in bed, you’ll get crumbs all over.” Taemin ignores him, tipping his head back and shaking the last chips into his mouth, at least the ones that don’t rain onto his shirt. “At least sit up, or you won’t digest properly.”

Taemin shoots him another look. This one says _Why did you choose today to be so fucking annoying,_ but out loud Taemin limits himself to, “It’s my bed, hyung.” Yeah, until he brushes everything onto the floor Jonghyun just cleaned. Then it’s Jonghyun's problem. “And it’s my stomach.”

“Until it starts to hurt,” Jonghyun snaps. “Then I’m the one who has to go and get you medicine.”

“Are you back on your diet or something?”

“What?”

Taemin crumples his chip bag and leaves it on his nightstand because the garbage is further away and he’s Taemin. And because he’s Taemin, he regrets even saying that much. It’s all over his face before he hides it in his pillow, and it’s in his voice when he mutters, “I don’t get why you’re so pissy otherwise.” Then, all in a rush, “It just came out like that. Sorry, hyung. I’m just, I’m really tired.”

_Don’t be sorry for the things you say to me. Be sorry for the things you don’t._ Jonghyun bites it back and tries again. “Filming was tiring?”

“Mm.”

When Taemin takes a peek at him Jonghyun catches his eye in a second. “Is it still awkward with Naeun-ssi?”

“Not as bad as before,” Taemin tells him. “I think I can get used to it.”

Is being married something you can just get used to? Jonghyun used to dream of his wedding night sometimes, but that was before he realized he’d never have one. The day Taemin told him he was going to be on We Got Married he said he’d never even thought about getting married at all, ever. And he probably still hasn’t. It’s just a TV show, it’s not real. Still…

“I can see it,” Jonghyun makes himself say. “You always need someone to take care of you.”

Taemin makes yet another face at him. _You’re being stupid._ “She’s younger than me, hyung. And anyway, it’s not like that.”

“What about me, then?” Jonghyun says before he can stop himself. “What’s it like with me?”

“You do all that stuff on your own, I never even ask.”

“I never make you.” Yeah, Taemin was right, Jonghyun was being stupid. He shouldn’t have said any of this, but he did, and now he’s left with this shitty feeling climbing its way up his stomach and into his throat. Shit. Jonghyun should probably go hide in the bathroom or get the lights or something, but it’s so much easier to roll over and say to the wall, “I guess we’ll both be better off when you go back home. Your mom’s fridge is never empty, and she’ll look after you so I won’t have to anymore.”

Silence.

Maybe Taemin will remember he forgot to tell Jonghyun. Maybe he’ll say he’s sorry for that, too. Maybe he won’t. Maybe Jonghyun is getting this really, really wrong. Maybe he’s being a gigantic fucking loser.

Silence silence silence.

“Are you mad at me or something?”

It’s a struggle just to get out, “Why would I be mad?”

“If you’re not, then fine,” Taemin huffs.

Jonghyun is, he’s so mad he can’t see straight, but fine.

“Aren’t you even going to ask how I know? Because you didn’t tell me.”

“I was going to, hyung. I’ve been really busy lately,” Taemin replies, almost like normal. Maybe they’re not fighting after all? Maybe it’d be okay to look again? Maybe Jonghyun should stop being crazy.

“Not too busy to tell Kibummie, though?”

“My mom told his mom, it just kind of came up.”

“‘Hyung, I’m moving back home.’ That’s not hard, Taeminnie.”

“Well, talking to you is,” Taemin says loudly. “I don’t get why you’re so mad.”

He wouldn’t.

“I’m not.” That’s a lie, maybe the tenth Jonghyun has told tonight. Jonghyun takes a deep breath, fisting his hands in his blanket and staring holes into the wall. “I just, I don’t like having to find things out through other people. You say I’m hard to talk to, but maybe that’s because you never even try, you just expect me to figure everything out on my own. I know talking is hard for you, Taemin-ah, I’m not saying it’s not, but don’t act like it’s my fault.”

“Hyung, I’m moving back home. There.”

There’s a whump that’s probably Taemin turning to face the wall too, another whump for emphasis, Taemin’s blanket rustling as he yanks it over himself. Someone has to get the light, still. Taemin can’t sleep with it on. Whenever Jonghyun comes home late and forgets, Taemin will lie there with it burning his insides red along with his eyelids until finally he explodes, the way Jonghyun is lying here burning right now.

Jonghyun forces himself to his feet. That’s his first mistake, because the first thing he sees is Taemin’s back, silent and unmoving. Then it’s the set of Taemin’s shoulders, the curve of Taemin’s spine under his blanket and his bare foot sticking out of the bottom, Taemin’s hand curled into a fist, tight and angry and still so small and cute it makes Jonghyun weak.

“Taemin-ah—”

“If you’re staying up can you at least turn the light off?” Taemin says very fast.

“Taemin-ah.”

“I really need to sleep. Really.”

For a second Jonghyun stands over him, torn, and then, “I’m sorry,” comes tumbling out of his mouth. He hates himself for saying it, but what can he do? He can’t hate Taemin.

It doesn’t last long anyway, because that’s all it takes for Taemin to roll over onto his back and burst out, “Why would you be sorry?” and give Jonghyun his worst look yet. _It’s not me, hyung, it’s you. Even if I were good at people you’d still make no sense._

Maybe Jonghyun should tell him, _I lied to you just now, I was mad. I am mad,_ and see what that gets him. But for as long as he holds Taemin’s eyes, Taemin lies there and meets his, until finally all that’s left inside Jonghyun that he can say is, “Aigoo,” and, “Good night.”

He pets Taemin’s hair clumsily and turns away to fumble for the light switch. He has to feel his way back to his bed, his side of the room, but when his eyes adjust the wall will look the same as it did. Taemin won’t. As Jonghyun undresses he can hear Taemin’s clothes whispering over his skin, his mattress creaking as he works his sweatpants down his legs and kicks his feet free. Same as every night he pretends he can’t.

“Hyung.”

Jonghyun takes his time answering, climbing into bed. “What?”

“What day are we doing our MV again? Not tomorrow, right?”

For “Boys Meet U,” he means.

“The day after.”

“Hyung.”

“Sleep, Taeminnie.”

For one long moment, so long Jonghyun thinks Taemin’s listened to him for the first time in history, Taemin is silent.

Finally he says, “I didn’t forget, I’m not that stupid. I was going to tell you. I just didn’t know how.”

“I didn’t say you were stupid,” Jonghyun says, but maybe that’s the least important thing. Or maybe not, since the next thing Jonghyun lets himself say out loud is, “How come your mom didn’t tell mine first? I thought they were close. Guess not~”

“It’ll be easier for you, too,” Taemin says instead of answering him. “No more mess.”

That’s worse. That’s harder.

But what Jonghyun says is, “No more snoring, either.”

“I don’t snore,” Taemin retorts immediately, putting this stupid smile on Jonghyun’s face. But then the next second he says, “You probably won’t miss me at all,” making it twist and wither and die. While Jonghyun’s figuring out which would be a quicker death, telling another lie or telling Taemin the truth, Taemin adds in a rush, “You’re still stuck with me for comebacks and stuff. Whenever I can’t make it home,” and then again, “Hyung.”

Jonghyun keeps his eyes closed. “What now?”

“Filming sucked. Or maybe I do. I never know what they want from me, and they’re always telling me like five different things.”

“It’s not you, it’s them.”

“You said it was me earlier.”

It almost sounds like a reproach.

“That was me and you, that’s different,” Jonghyun says as gently as he can. “You’ve been on enough variety to know TV is full of shit, Taemin-ah. It’s not even the first time you’ve played someone’s boyfriend.”

“Husband.”

“Same difference.”

Maybe not. Maybe that word would taste more bitter.

“Yunhanam was different,” Taemin contradicts him immediately. “You were there.”

“And you were like a child, and now you’re not.” _You don’t need me anymore. There, here, anywhere._ For seconds that last an eternity, Jonghyun listens to Taemin’s silence and hopes with every cell in his body that Taemin isn’t lying there listening to what Jonghyun’s left unsaid. Finally he can’t take it anymore. “You really don’t like Naeun-ssi?”

“I barely even know her.” Taemin pauses, probably thinking it over. Jonghyun doesn’t know how to tell him not to. It’s Jonghyun’s fault when Taemin gets back to him with, “As a dongsaeng, I do. She’s cute.”

When Jonghyun opens his eyes the wall is waiting for him. It stares back, too. He doesn’t have to reply. He can leave it there, just hold out for another five minutes, until Taemin’s breathing evens and the silence deepens and he’s alone with himself again.

“The way I like you?” Jonghyun says.

Taemin smiles his cutest, most unfair smile. Jonghyun doesn’t even have to look to know. It’s right there in his voice when he says, like he shouldn’t even have to and Jonghyun is being stupid on purpose, “You know me.”

_I love you._

Tomorrow passes in no time flat. Taemin is gone for like ninety-five percent of it so Jonghyun doesn’t even care, not until the day of their MV dawns and he has to get up.

Jonghyun doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to wait for Taemin to finish his shower, either, only for Taemin to come out in a towel and leave the bathroom steaming hot and smelling of his shampoo. He doesn’t want to jerk off. He doesn’t want to pretend he didn’t, looking into Taemin’s face like he hadn’t just imagined it dripping in his come, shoveling down rice he can’t taste until Manager hyung ushers them out the door and into the growing daylight. He doesn’t want to hear Manager hyung say, _I wasn’t sure if I was going to have to make another stop this morning. Are you going back with them too, Taemin-ah?_ That’s one more person who found out before him, plus one more time Jonghyun has to think about it, which equals something really close to a shitty day, even though it’s only seven a.m. Really, really close, because he’s not dreading filming enough that he’s happier being stuck in traffic, sitting here and listening to the others talk and talk and talk. And talk.

“Are you and Naeun-ssi making progress~?”

Especially not about that.

“We finished the episode we were on last night, but I don’t remember what number it’s supposed to be,” Taemin says, like that’s anything close to what Kibum was asking him. He probably doesn’t get it when Minho laughs and shakes his head at him, either, and he ducks out of the way when Jinki reaches back to pet his hair. And he doesn’t glance over at Jonghyun and catch him staring before Jonghyun can cut his eyes away, shut them tight, slump against his window.

“When I met her she seemed even shyer than you,” Minho says. “Look after her. At least try.”

“It’s not like it’s just the two of us, there’s the whole crew.” Now Jonghyun can feel Taemin’s eyes on his face. Too late. _Don’t look to hyung for help, I’m trying to sleep, I’m not listening, I don’t care if you say,_ “I do try.”

Kibum snorts. “Uh huh.”

“You guys were the ones trying to mess me up the whole time. Next time I’m asking for the other two hyungs.”

Jonghyun would enlist to avoid it if he had to, but that gets a laugh out of Kibum.

“Jinki hyung wouldn’t just mess you up, he’d mess everything up, and Jonghyunnie hyung would flirt with your wife. And she’d probably flirt back, too,” he says. His seat creaks as he leans back to hit Jonghyun, then again, until Jonghyun gives up and looks at him. “Did you know, when she heard it was someone from Shinee she said she was hoping it’d be you~”

Jonghyun’s eyes shoot to Taemin’s face, only to watch his ears flush that telltale pink.

“She’s not my style, Taeminnie,” comes flying out of Jonghyun’s mouth, just as Taemin says to Kibum, “That was before she met me.”

What is that supposed to mean? Jonghyun bites that question back, but he’s still stuck here while the world turns like normal and Kibum laughs at Taemin and retorts, “You look shorter in person, though.”

Taemin steals another glance at Jonghyun, trapping him in the corner of his eye. “I’m taller than hyung.”

Barely. But what does Jonghyun have to do with it? He just said he wouldn’t flirt with her, he wasn’t into her. What he can’t say is he wouldn’t even see her if Taemin were next to her.

Next Kibum tries, “Has she seen you without makeup? That’s the real question.”

Before Taemin can open his mouth to reply, before Jonghyun can think at all, he’s already saying, “What, she’d hate him because he’s prettier than her?”

And now he’s stuck sitting here with those words hanging in the air. It’s not like it was weird, at least not for Jonghyun. He’s said it all before and he’d say it again. Maybe not. His face is burning and Taemin’s eyes are on him again, and Jonghyun can’t bring himself to meet them. It’s enough that he catches the look on Kibum’s face as he turns back to his window and only needs half a second to read it, the rest of the car ride to live with it. _It’s called a joke, hyung. If anyone went too far it definitely wasn’t me, it was you._

Jonghyun closes his eyes and folds his arms over his chest, hands balling into fists none of them can see. “Let’s just get through this.”

Minho laughs.

“What is there to get through? It’s the beach, hyung.”

Yeah, the beach and five million cameras, the summer sun pounding down on them and this stupid song pounding in their ears, over and over and over as Jonghyun lip syncs lies to the camera. He doesn’t like sexy or pretty or cutie girls anymore. It’s been a year and a half now since he’s looked at girls at all, and probably two or three years since he started to look at Taemin. Cute Taemins, like the one who put the shirt the coordi noonas gave him on backwards and needed Jonghyun to tell him to fix it. Pretty Taemins, like the one standing next to Jonghyun drenched in sunlight, or the one Jonghyun will see in the moonlight on the way back to the dorm tonight. Sexy Taemins, like the wet, naked one who came out of the shower this morning and dropped his towel before Jonghyun could escape, soft smooth skin still a little pink from the shower, supple line of his neck and spine, his cute little ass as he bent over his dresser—

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. No more sexy Taemin. Cutie Taemin is safer. These pants are too tight for those kinds of thoughts, and the sun is too bright and Taemin smells too good, and he keeps touching Jonghyun and smiling at him, and Jonghyun can tell he’s not faking it for the cameras. All Jonghyun can do is smile back and hope Taemin can’t tell that he is. 

This song is less than three minutes long but somehow their MV stretches on and on. Their lunch break comes and goes, and the others make so much fun of Jinki for sweating through his shirt doing nothing that Jonghyun doesn’t have to find the breath to bitch about the heat like normal. Somehow the afternoon is better. Faster, at least, because one minute Jonghyun is smiling so hard for the cameras his jaw could crack, when he’s not making every variation of his trademark sexy face he can muster and ignoring Kibum’s commentary and Taemin’s laughter, and the next the PD is telling them to take another break. Which they do. What choice do they have? All Jonghyun knows is he wants to be done so badly he could cry, but they’re not, they never are, so when Taemin toes out of his shoes and wanders down the beach, Jonghyun lets himself follow. All it takes is ten steps, his feet sinking into the sand, Taemin laughing at how it feels between his toes, and like magic, somehow they’re the only two people in the world. For the first time all day Jonghyun can hear the ocean.

“It’d be nice if work was always like this,” Taemin says.

Like this one single moment, maybe. Who is he kidding, yes. But that’s not what Taemin means, he means this whole day, the sun and the beach and the laughing and the smiling, all the things Taemin has learned to love about this job and all the things Jonghyun probably never will.

“You don’t like to keep it separate. I do,” Jonghyun replies. “I don’t want to pretend to have fun for work, I want to have fun and I want to work.”

Taemin frowns at him like he’s caught Jonghyun in an obvious lie. “Because work is never fun for you?” No? That must show in his face, since now Taemin is shaking his head at him. “It’s because you only ever remember the worst parts, hyung.”

Maybe, but that’s the way Jonghyun is. Even with everything he’s feeling right now, sneaking glances at Taemin in the fading sunlight, walking close enough that their hands brush every third step, he’ll probably only remember the moment they had to turn around, or the way his heart hurt on the way back.

“Someone has to, since you only remember the best,” Jonghyun says. “Besides, I’m not the one who’s getting paid to go on dates.”

At Jonghyun’s own words his stomach twists, even tighter when Taemin gets the weirdest look on his face. Bumping his shoulder into Taemin’s doesn’t get it off. Again and Taemin almost smiles, again and he asks Jonghyun, “Do you know how wrong that sounds?”

Oh. Somehow that has Jonghyun’s stomach twisting tighter still, so tight he can hardly breathe and his voice is going to come out strange.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Taeminnie.”

“I know you didn’t.” Taemin shoots Jonghyun half a smile, the one that says, _I know I’m being weird~,_ before returning his gaze to his feet. It takes him another few steps to come out with the rest of it. “Some creepy guy tried to buy Naeunnie’s info off her manager.” At the look on Jonghyun’s face Taemin hastens to add, _“Tried,_ don’t worry. He told him to fuck off.”

It’s the last thing Jonghyun should say, but somehow it’s the first thing out of his mouth. “Naeun-ssi told you all that? I thought you guys weren’t that close.”

“I overheard them talking about it.” 

Okay. Jonghyun got the answer he wanted so maybe now he can stop being a selfish piece of shit. Or not. Taemin’s words linger under Jonghyun’s skin, this weird numbing fire like his whole body has fallen asleep, and each time their hands brush or their eyes meet shakes the feeling back into Jonghyun, hot and painful and too-bright.

“If anyone tries that on you, you’d tell me, right?” he says.

“On Manager hyung, you mean?” Taemin laughs at the thought. “He probably wouldn’t even know what to say, he’d be too shocked.”

Maybe Taemin would be, if he heard half the things Manager hyung probably deals with and doesn’t tell them.

“I’m serious, Taemin-ah.”

“Sasaengs probably buy our info from people all the time,” Taemin points out.

Plane tickets and schedules and home addresses, sure. And there are also probably people who’d try to buy a lot more than that, but it’d take Jonghyun somewhere so much darker and uglier than here, imagining all the things creeps probably imagine about Taemin all the time. Taemin on their arm in a club, Taemin on his knees, Taemin used and broken in a hotel bed, Taemin doing all kinds of things he’d never ever do in places he’d never go because he’s Taemin, and Jonghyun is being crazy, so crazy. Because Jonghyun would rather die than let Taemin even think about it.

Jonghyun should probably be biting his tongue until he bleeds, not telling Taemin, “That’s not all that guy was after. Don’t play dumb, Taemin-ah.”

“I’m not,” Taemin retorts, shooting Jonghyun a look. “I’m also not a girl.”

“You’re also you.” Jonghyun tears his eyes away from Taemin before he has to watch those words hit him, see if Taemin thinks he’s being weird. “You know how beautiful you are. I know you know. But then, knowing you, I guess you must forget all the time.”

“You just told me not to play dumb, now you’re calling me dumb.”

Jonghyun’s chest tightens and his heart hurts, and when he says, “I called you beautiful,” it’s to the sand at his feet, the waves rolling in, everything but Taemin’s face.

For one long moment, Taemin keeps him waiting. So Jonghyun waits and waits and waits. 'I don’t need you to tell me that~.' 'You’re always calling me that, hyung.' 'Don’t you think they did my makeup weird today, though?' Just _something._ Anything.

“I don’t even know why we’re talking about this.”

Anything but that.

“Let’s not, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun says.

If he turned and walked back on his own, Taemin would probably follow him, and if they got back early, he probably would forget to blame Jonghyun too. But he keeps walking, and so does Jonghyun, feet so heavy in the sand, which means he gets to hear, “Besides, they aren’t dates.” When Jonghyun risks a look at him Taemin Isn’t Looking, ears glowing red. “With Naeunnie, I mean. It doesn’t feel like a date when you’re surrounded by like thirty cameras and Writer Noona is telling you what to say. Her instincts are worse than mine, she’s probably forever solo too.”

Taemin wouldn’t even know what a date feels like, he’s been on like three at most. And yet Jonghyun wants to believe him. He’s not going to think about all those other times Taemin and Naeun are trapped in hair and makeup together, the times Manager hyung is busy with Jonghyun and the others and she offers Taemin a ride, the times when they’re stuck hanging around set until the PD can get that perfect shot of the sunset.

“And right now?” Jonghyun asks, helpless to stop himself. “What does right now feel like?”

Taemin stumbles. Jonghyun’s hand shoots out instinctively, and then he has Taemin’s wrist in his hand, fine bones and soft soft skin, and he’d rather die than let go. Taemin doesn’t test his grip, doesn’t move, doesn’t anything.

_Tell me I’m making no sense. Tell me it’s because I’m tired, tell me how little sleep I got last night, tell me you noticed. Tell me to keep walking this way and I’ll walk with you forever. Tell me you’re tired, way too tired to walk back, I should carry you on my back._

Taemin tells his feet, “I don’t know. What about you?”

One more step and Jonghyun would be close enough to kiss him. Taemin’s hair would be so soft under his fingers and his lips would be even softer, and maybe he’d make one of his many cute surprised noises. And then maybe he’d bring his hands in between them, palms pressed to Jonghyun’s chest, his heartbeat, and push him away. And when he did Jonghyun would still be fucked, because no matter what expression Jonghyun had put on his face, Taemin would still be the most beautiful thing in his world. And maybe that would be the last time Jonghyun ever saw him.

He’s being dramatic. The last time he ever got to look at Taemin without feeling dirty, maybe. The last time Taemin could look at him without feeling sorry. Maybe he would move out tomorrow instead of waiting for some day he hasn’t even told Jonghyun yet.

“We should head back. One more scene and we’re done,” Jonghyun says, stepping away, fingertips whispering over Taemin’s skin until they kiss the air instead. No more touching, not unless Taemin stumbles again. Maybe Jonghyun should try letting him fall.

Taemin hesitates, then hesitates some more, finally raising his eyes to Jonghyun’s face. “Aren’t they waiting for the sun to set?”

What is Jonghyun waiting for? For Taemin to tell him ‘I like girls?’ For Taemin to stop being so pretty? For his heart to stop racing whenever they touch, for it to start doing what it’s told? For it to break for good finally?

Jonghyun turns and starts walking. Within a few steps he can hear Taemin’s footfalls behind him. By the time they reach set he’ll probably be telling Jonghyun what he wants for dinner, and somehow Jonghyun will have to resist until Manager hyung or Jinki shows up. Which he won’t. Maybe it’ll be tteokbokki when they get back to the dorm. And Jonghyun will smile when Taemin smiles at him, laugh at Taemin when he tries to be funny, cheat on his diet for Taemin, walk him back to the dorm, talk to him until he falls asleep, then lie awake and listen to him breathe and try not to die over every single moment he came close to cracking his chest open and showing Taemin his heart.

None of those things happen. By the time they climb into the van Taemin is more tired than he is hungry, and he falls asleep on Jonghyun’s shoulder long before they reach home.

_Home._

Jonghyun is going to get a crick in his neck, trying to peer down at Taemin’s face. It’s a weird angle, anyway, and once they get back to the dorm he has all night to watch Taemin sleep. And outside his window there’re the city lights and the stars and maybe a full moon. Jonghyun can’t remember what day it was supposed to be.

But maybe next time they’re all coming home from a late night Manager Hyung will say, _Do you guys mind if I drop Taeminnie off first? Then I can crash at the dorm with you._

Jonghyun’s neck can be stiff all it wants. His heart can hurt all it wants too, as long as Taemin stays right here, soft and warm and heavy against him.

Jonghyun is the one who has to shake Taemin awake when they get there.

Jonghyun would take all that, take breaking his own heart in the stupidest, smallest ways over the stupidest, smallest things, just _anything,_ over the days Taemin stays out past dark and the nights Taemin doesn’t come home at all. Like today, when Jonghyun got up and found Jinki hovering in the kitchen, unsure if he should throw away the banchan Taemin ate for breakfast and left out on the table, hours and hours and ago. Like tonight. Kibum and Minho are off having lives and Jinki hasn’t come out of his room since he smelled Jonghyun’s ramyun and tried to steal some. Jonghyun should have let him have it all. What doesn’t end up in the trash is like a rock in Jonghyun’s stomach, probably already turning to fat as he sits here. Why did he eat it? He wasn’t even hungry. Whatever. It’s not like Taemin would like him any less if he got fat. He’s never liked Jonghyun any more when he’s worked out and dieted and worried about his hair. He doesn’t like Jonghyun. If he did he would answer any one of the thousand texts Jonghyun keeps sending him.

_r u working late?_

_filming, i mean_

_make sure u nap taeminah. u barely slept last night_

_i found ur wallet on the floor this morning. afternoon. when i got up_

_put it on ur nightstand_

_u probably didnt even know u lost it. ull probably pick it up tomorrow morning like normal and forget u forgot it yesterday. u wont read this either_

_if u do hyung isnt mad._

_its ok if u dont thank me. id just sleep thru it anyway._

_work hard taeminnie~_

He sent the last one two hours ago, and that was at eleven. Which means it’s one in the morning now and Taemin still isn’t home. What could they possibly have left to film at this point? Taemin gets like twenty minutes an episode at most. Maybe he finished. Maybe he finished and Manager hyung gave him his phone back and Taemin saw 20 unread messages from Jonghyun and skipped right past him to Jongin. Maybe the next time they see each other he’ll say, _Did you get drunk that night, hyung? You blew up my phone._ Whenever that will be.

Jonghyun’s stomach twists so tight it’s like he can’t breathe. When he curls in on himself, pressing his knees to his chest and forcing the breath out of his body, it gets worse, then better, then worse.

He should just get up. He should have gone to the gym tonight. He should’ve finished his book. He should at least turn the TV on, pretend there’s a reason he’s lying out here other than their room being too lonely without Taemin or the view he has from the couch of the door. He should stop wondering what Taemin is doing, where he is, who he’s with, what look he has on his face right now. He should look at his own reflection in the television screen and see what he’s doing to himself.

At least he’s not crying? Not this time, at least. He’s such a fucking loser.

Two o’clock.

Must be with Jongin. There’s no way filming could run this late. 

Three.

Right? 

Maybe Taemin has tomorrow off? Jonghyun can’t remember.

Whatever. They probably went for a walk by the river or something, Taemin could clear his head after a day in front of the cameras and Jongin could tease him about his married life, or maybe ask him, _Why does your phone keep going? Check it already._

_taeminnie?_

_i know hyung is being annoying but answer_

_for once in ur fucking life please_

Four.

Jonghyun checks the news, just to be safe, even though his hand is shaking so badly he can barely type and his heart is pounding so loud in his ears he can’t even think. But no car crashes. Okay.

Okay.

Five.

Maybe Taemin went to his parents’ place. Maybe Jonghyun should run over all the way over to their building and check and make sure, pound on his door and wake his mom up and let Taemin call him crazy all he wants. And then he could fill himself up with Taemin’s laughter and all his weird looks, turn down breakfast and walk back. And after everything, he’d still end up right here.

Jonghyun folds his arms over his chest and curls up tighter, squeezes his eyes shut and sees black.

“You’re still up? It’s six thirty.”

Taemin.

There’s this horrible thing clawing its way up Jonghyun’s insides, onto his face. He stays right where he is, sitting on the couch, staring into his reflection in the TV, and lets it. He doesn’t care if Taemin sees him like this, it’s not that. It’s just he doesn’t know what this thing will do if he looks. What Jonghyun will.

“So you know what time it is,” Jonghyun’s voice says. “I didn’t. I didn’t know anything. Where you were, if you were even supposed to come home, if this is home anymore—”

This is the part where Taemin has to cut across Jonghyun, _Whatever, I’m going to bed,_ but instead he cuts him right in half. “I was filming, hyung.”

“With Naeun-ssi.” As Jonghyun climbs to his feet Taemin comes into view, pale and tired, smudged makeup he probably spent the whole car ride back here trying to rub off, ratty old sweatpants he always wears to music shows and won’t take off until the last second. This is who Naeun saw. Not Shinee’s Taemin, Jonghyun’s. He can’t stop his heart thundering in his ears, but curling his hands into fists stops them from shaking. “What is there to film this late, even? Did you two go to a hotel this episode or something?”

Taemin blinks at him. “What?”

What is right. As in what the fuck did Jonghyun just say. It takes every last thing inside him to turn away and take one step towards their bedroom, so he has nothing left to stop himself from saying, “Next time text me. It’s not that hard.”

“Next time, what?” _Please shut up, Taeminnie. Please just let me be crazy in peace._ “Next time I have a completely normal day?”

“The next time you don’t come home all fucking night and keep me up thinking about all the things that could’ve happened to you,” comes tearing out of Jonghyun.

Taemin’s eyes widen, then narrow, hot and angry. “When I don’t come home it’s because I’m at work, or I’m with Jonginnie or something. I never said anything when you spent the night with your girlfriends.”

“Yeah, because you knew where I was, because I always told you, because I FUCKING TELL YOU THINGS!”

The light flicks on and Minho’s door swings open, and there’s Minho himself, because Jonghyun and Taemin aren’t the only two people in the world, and Jonghyun might have shouted that at the top of his lungs and.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” Minho demands.

“You said you weren’t mad.” At the sound of Taemin’s voice Jonghyun’s eyes snap back to him, and the look Taemin is giving him stops Jonghyun’s heart for a second. Only for a second, and then Taemin hurls at him, “I should’ve known, you’re such a fucking liar,” and suddenly it’s like a battering ram to Jonghyun’s ribs, so loud in his ears he can barely hear his own voice rising—

“Oh yeah, that’s me. I’m the liar. I’m not the one who just decides shit all on my own and then forgets to fucking let you know about things that affect you too.”

Jonghyun runs out of breath before he runs out of words, chest caving in as Taemin explodes, “Not everything is about you, hyung!”

“Taemin-ah, come on.” Jinki now. When did he show up? He reaches for Taemin, trying to turn him around by his shoulders, telling him, “You’ve had a long day. Night. Whatever. Come on, go to bed.” 

“And some things are,” Jonghyun gets out. “Some things are about me.”

Taemin wrenches free of Jinki, eyes burning Jonghyun to ash, small hands balled into fists, and why do they still look so cute to Jonghyun, why is his heart about to give out, why did he start a fight he can’t win.

“How is me moving out about you?” Taemin says loudly. “I mean, okay, you never sleep and you’re loud and sometimes you’re annoying—”

“You really don’t have room to talk, Taemin-ah,” Jonghyun retorts, voice sharp. “You know how much of my life I’ve spent cleaning up after you?”

“So you won’t have to anymore, good for you.”

“You think that’s good?” Something like laughter scrapes up Jonghyun’s throat. “You think I’ll be happier alone?”

“Then what are the rest of us?” Minho protests.

Jonghyun doesn’t have time to explain to him he’s not Taemin, none of them are, no one else ever could be what he is to Jonghyun, he’s too busy ripping his heart out his chest and throwing it across the room at Taemin. “I’ll just be alone. Move out, do whatever you want, you always do. Just don’t pretend you’re doing it for me, you selfish brat.”

Taemin’s face contorts and for a moment it’s like he’s too angry to speak, even, but when Jinki takes him by the shoulders again, tries to twist him around, he knocks out of Taemin, “You’re not the only person in my life.”

“It’s kind of hard to miss that, Taeminnie,” and the words curdle in Jonghyun’s mouth, foul and sour and _shut up shut up shut up,_ “considering how many people there are in front of me. Kibummie, Manager hyung—”

“My parents?”

“—your _wife—”_

“Can you shut up about her for once?” Taemin says over him. “You’re always talking about her, you talk about her more than me and you don’t even know her.” He sneers. “You said she wasn’t your style, but who isn’t?”

Jonghyun laughs that awful laugh again. “I guess she’s not yours?” 

“How many times do I have to tell you, IT’S A FUCKING TV SHOW,” Taemin yells, so loud Jonghyun’s eardrums split and Kibum bangs out of his room cursing Taemin’s existence. Taemin doesn’t even care, face red, knuckles white, breathing hard. “You must think I love working until the crack of dawn and not sleeping and then going back in and doing it again,” he rages at Jonghyun. “You think I love being in front of those stupid cameras and starving all day and trying to pretend I like her, and then coming home and pretending I don’t like you.”

What?

For one long, echoing moment, silence. Feeling rushes in and out of Jonghyun’s body. He can’t breathe. He can’t talk. He doesn’t understand. Before he can even try, something in Taemin’s face breaks.

“Fuck this.”

Taemin makes for the door. Jonghyun’s feet move on their own, his hand shoots out, and then he has Taemin jerking against his hold, and his fingers are probably pressing bruises into Taemin’s skin, but Taemin turns away, hiding from Jonghyun’s eyes.

“Taemin-ah.”

Minho tries getting in between them, “Let go, hyung,” but Jonghyun won’t. Not until Taemin fucking _looks at him._

“What does that mean, pretending not to like me?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not pretending right now.” When Jonghyun reaches up to turn Taemin’s cheek towards him Taemin shoves his hand away blindly, rounding on him, tears standing in his eyes as he bursts out, “What do you think, hyung?”

_You like girls. You like Naeun-ssi. You like the people you’re supposed to like, and I get to hate them and hate myself more. That’s how this is supposed to work._

_I like you. I like you to death, so don’t play with me._

“I didn’t know, Taeminnie,” is all Jonghyun can get out.

“Because I didn’t tell you, right? Because I never tell you anything, right.” He twists free of Jonghyun’s grip, but before Jonghyun can even stop himself he’s made a grab for Taemin again, holding onto him for dear life, just until Taemin’s words finally hit him hard enough, until Taemin does. “If you didn’t it’s because you didn’t want to. That or you’re stupid. Fucking _let go of me.”_

“Because I’m stupid. Hyung is stupid, so tell me again. Tell me so that I understand.”

Taemin makes this face Jonghyun’s seen a thousand times before, the one that says he’s five seconds from blowing up on Jonghyun. _You’re so fucking frustrating, hyung._

“I said, I LIKE YOU.”

Next thing Taemin’s thundered down the hall to the entryway, and it’s all Jonghyun can do to stand over him as he shoves his feet into his shoes, find the breath to ask, “Where are you going?”

Taemin throws him a look that could kill, reaching for the door.

“Home.”

Jonghyun wakes up alone with the sunlight burning his eyelids red and his sheet half dragged off his body, same as he has all summer. There’s nothing new about any of this, except it all hurts this time, eyes crusted shut, chest caved in, terrible yawning emptiness that might swallow him whole if he just lay here and let it. His bladder is about to explode, though, so in the end he gets up. He doesn’t trip over Taemin’s clothes on his way out of their room or on Taemin’s towel as he steps into the shower. Taemin’s shampoo is actually capped and his toothbrush is where it belongs, and for once there’s no toothpaste caked on the tube. There’s no Taemin in their room to tell Jonghyun, _Just because I’m used to seeing you naked doesn’t mean I want to,_ but maybe Jonghyun got too used to seeing Taemin every day because he can’t even remember the face Taemin would make when he said that. Probably his lying one. Maybe Jonghyun just didn't look hard enough. He knows he’s a fucking idiot for sure.

This whole time he thought he was alone, Taemin was too. Jonghyun was blinded by his own tears. So fucking stupid. But what about Taemin, how could he tell Jonghyun like that? Why did he wait until he’d twisted Jonghyun into the thing he was last night? Why did he hold everything in just so he could throw it in Jonghyun’s face? Why can’t he ever fucking talk to Jonghyun. 

_Hyung, I think I like you._ It’s not that hard.

Neither is, _Taemin-ah, I like you._

At least it shouldn’t be, not anymore. Taemin grew taller than Jonghyun before they even debuted and the last time Taemin’s mom told Jonghyun to watch after him was before they first went to Japan, years and years ago now. Every concert now Taemin goes out drinking with the dancer hyungs. He’s made more money than Jonghyun this year. He’s a married man. But Jonghyun is himself, so somehow it is. It’s really, really hard. Everything is. He woke up alone and he’ll probably fall asleep alone tonight, and in a week he’ll probably drag himself around to telling Taemin half the truth, _I’m sorry I got so mad, Taeminnie. Hyung is sorry,_ instead of all of it. _Of course I was mad. You make me so crazy all the time, you make me worry and you make me jealous and you hurt me and you don’t even know you’re doing any of it, you never do. You probably don’t know either that I’d die without you._

Taemin had one thing right—fuck this.

The couch beats their empty room when it comes to lying down and dying, even with the look Kibum throws him. He’s fine with Jonghyun settling in and wedging his feet against his thigh, though, as long as Jonghyun knows, “I’m not changing the channel.”

Right now it’s commercials, but in a minute it’ll probably be We Got Married.

“Fine with me,” Jonghyun lies.

Kibum sighs at him. “You look like shit. I though you were sleeping but I guess you were crying, huh.”

“No.”

“Aigoo.” Kibum sighs again, louder this time. “Someone’s a bad liar~”

Not Taemin. The last couple of times Jonghyun couldn’t escape in time to avoid witnessing his marital bliss, Taemin smiled and laughed and blushed at Naeun the way Jonghyun always wanted him to smile and laugh and blush at him. And now it’s more of the same, except Jonghyun is lying here wondering how he was supposed to figure out that all the faces Taemin makes at him meant something more than _Hyung is stupid~._ Like, _Stupid hyung, I’m right here. I like you and I’m right here and all you can talk about is other people._

Jonghyun swallows back the bitter taste in his mouth. “Kibum-ah.”

Kibum grunts to show he’s listening. Which means Jonghyun has to say it, he’s stuck.

“Did you know he liked guys?” is as close as he can bear to saying, _Did you know he liked me?_

“Mm.”

Jonghyun’s stomach twists, and before he can stop himself he’s demanding, “Did he tell you?”

“Does he tell anyone anything?” Kibum says. “He didn’t have to, anyway. I can always tell with him.”

“I thought I could.” Taemin laughs at something Naeun just said, but Jonghyun’s never heard anything less funny in his life. He rolls over until his face is squashed into the armrest and he can say safely, “Has he asked for his things?”

“He probably hasn’t even woken up yet.” Jonghyun feels Kibum’s eyes crawling up his spine, tensing up against the hit that never comes, but instead of his hand Kibum uses words. “Oh my fucking God, hyung. You’ve had worse fights. Just get it over with and apologize to him.”

“Why is it always me who has to?” Jonghyun can’t bite back.

“You are sorry, right?”

So what if he is? So what if he’s so fucking sorry he could choke on it. “Taeminnie’s probably not.”

“He’s probably not anything, he’s probably still asleep,” Kibum retorts, like Jonghyun missed that the first time, the fact that Taemin even could sleep through this, when Jonghyun cried until he blacked out and then woke up to this. Kibum’s hand is gentle when he pats Jonghyun’s back, and so is his voice when he goes on, “And anyway, he probably is, he’s the one who said he likes you. If you’re sorry then say so, it’s that simple.”

Is it?

_Taeminnie, I’m sorry._

_Taeminnie, I like you back._

_I love you and I’m sorry and I want to date you and if I could marry you I would, so no more pretending, okay? For either of us._

Jonghyun takes a deep breath. Rolls out into the open, only to find Kibum watching him instead of the TV, waiting with the question, “You really don’t get why he got mad, do you?” 

“I don’t get why he didn’t get why I did,” Jonghyun says honestly.

How would he like it if Jonghyun got TV married and told Taemin his TV wife was cute, or stayed out all night and let Taemin think even for a second that something might have happened to him? How would Taemin like it if Jonghyun left him here?

“You must really not get why he moved—why he’s moving out, either,” Kibum presses him.

“He’d have to tell me first.”

Kibum laughs disbelievingly. “See, this is why you and Taeminnie can’t communicate.”

Does Kibum think he’s helping? Because he’s not. Jonghyun takes a deep breath, saying as calmly as he can, which is not very, “We can’t because he’s Taeminnie.”

“And because you’re you,” Kibum tells him. “You know, a lot of the stuff you do for him, Taeminnie never asked you to. Such as waiting up all night for him when you know better than anyone what his hours are like, for example, or cleaning up after him all the time. Or acting like you’re fine when you’re not.” Kibum catches Jonghyun’s eye. “You just do it because that’s how you are, and then you want him to thank you for it.”

Jonghyun wanted Taemin to love him for it. Which apparently he does. Somehow. Even though Jonghyun’s given him so many reasons not to, he does.

“Kibum-ah.” Jonghyun digs his toes into Kibum’s thigh. “Kibum-ah.”

“What, already?”

From deep, deep inside himself, Jonghyun gets out, “I like him.”

“I know.”

“I never wanted him to.” Jonghyun swallows, mouth dry. “Is it okay if I do?”

“Are you asking my permission or something? Aigoo. Just don’t hurt him and we’re fine.” Kibum sighs, sinking deeper into the couch cushions. “Should I move out, too? You guys are starting to get on my nerves.” Jonghyun doesn’t even have to open his mouth before Kibum adds, “And by starting, I mean even more than before.”

Jonghyun doesn’t know he’s going to tell Kibum, “I’m going to,” until it’s already out of his mouth, but once it’s out there, it doesn’t hang in the air between them, and Jonghyun can breathe freer. “There’s no reason not to anymore.”

“Aigoo.” Kibum levels Jonghyun with a look. “What Taeminnie needs is his own space. What you need is your own life.”

“What does that mean?”

Kibum doesn’t have to think about it. “Whatever you want it to.”

So Jonghyun does.

He tries. His head goes around in circles and so does his heart, and each day there comes this moment where it hits him so hard it almost knocks him flat: Taemin likes him. Him. And then time will start again. It feels like it’s been a hundred years when he gets up and Jinki tells Jonghyun not to eat too much lunch or breakfast or whatever he thinks of it as, because they’re having a team meeting tonight. And by meeting he means dinner. Barbecue. Taemin’s favorite.

Once Jonghyun’s put his food back away he can’t hide in the refrigerator, so he goes for his book instead, flopping onto the couch and opening up to a random page. “Does Taeminnie know?”

Jinki hesitates, shifting his weight, standing over Jonghyun. “It’s kind of his moving out party. To say goodbye.”

Because that’s a thing they have to do now. They’ll have to say it at the end of every single day they work together, and say hello on the mornings where they’ve gone too long without seeing each other.

“He might be working late for all we know,” Jonghyun says.

“He gets out at six. Kibummie checked with Eunji-ssi, she said they have a schedule Naeun-ssi can’t miss.”

Two hours and ten pages later Jinki is back with, “Taeminnie says he needs a ride home. We can just kidnap him, then~”

Jonghyun keeps his head down. “What about Manager hyung?”

“Family emergency,” Jinki tells him, before he hesitates some more. “I wasn’t going to take my car, is the thing.”

He’s going to get too drunk to drive back, he means. Jonghyun could just tell him, _You don't need soju to live, hyung,_ and no one could even blame him. He could tell him to tell Taemin to get a taxi, or tell him to ask Naeun, and then he could lie on this couch and rot for the rest of the summer, and maybe by the end of it he’ll have made it to the next chapter and Taemin will have forgotten what they even fought about. A little longer and maybe he’ll have forgotten Jonghyun.

“I’ll go.”

“He said he’s just filming at the station today.” Jinki beams at Jonghyun as he snaps his book shut and climbs to his feet. “You can tell him on the way. The surprise isn’t the main thing, anyway. The meat is.”

The drive over to MBC lasts an eternity, but it feels like no time at all once he’s parked and locked his doors and double, triple checked he did, and run out of excuses not to go inside. He’s been here a million times before and a staffer directs him to Taemin’s waiting room, so he can’t even get lost. Or not, because when he opens the door he finds himself face-to-face with Naeun. She freezes at the sight of him, before remembering herself and rising into a half bow, pretty face hidden by her curtain of hair.

“Sorry, Naeun-ssi,” Jonghyun says as normally as he can, like his insides aren’t churning with shame at the sight of her. “Sorry to bother you, I got the wrong room.”

He’s halfway out the door when she says from behind him, “Sunbaenim.” It takes way too much out of him to turn around again. “Are you looking for Taemin oppa?”

That’s one thing Jonghyun can never get used to, the fact that people younger than Taemin have debuted. That they even exist.

Jonghyun tries smiling at her and it’s so much easier than he thought it would be. “Someone said this was his waiting room. Do you know where it is?”

“We started sharing after a week,” Naeun explains. “They do us one at a time for this part anyway, so it’s not like it makes a difference.”

“Is he still filming?”

“Mm. His interviews take even longer than mine.”

The longer Jonghyun hesitates the longer she does too, halfway out of her chair like she’s not sure it’s okay to get back off her feet. Is he that scary? When Jonghyun crosses the room and takes the nearest chair, she sinks back down too. She can only meet his eyes two seconds at a time. That’s longer than Jonghyun should probably be able to meet hers. If she knew he’s spent the last two months dying of jealousy over her and Taemin while they’ve been too busy to die of anything, not awkwardness or exhaustion, or that seeing her face on television made him feel ugly, Charmeleon comparing himself to a doll...

It’s enough that Jonghyun has to live with that.

“Taeminnie never knows what to say,” Jonghyun says, even though right now he’s the one who doesn’t.

“They always tell me,” Naeun replies.

“He never listens, either.”

She laughs out loud. As soon as she catches herself she covers her mouth with one tiny hand. Even Taemin’s would probably feel big if she held it.

“At first it felt like lying, but this whole show kinda is.”

“You aren’t used to that by now~?” Jonghyun gives her another smile, the biggest, stupidest one he’s got. “Maybe your company isn’t like SM.”

“No, it is,” she blurts out, then hesitates. “Oppa talks more when you get to know him, anyway.”

“Do you?” Maybe that was too far, because she freezes up a little. “I’m kidding, Naeun-ssi.”

Naeun laughs again like she doesn’t know what else to do, telling Jonghyun, “He said you have a weird sense of humor,” from behind her hand, before she kind of realizes what she said, eyes darting to his face to see if she’s in trouble. Taemin was right, she’s really cute. And Jonghyun really, really sucks.

Jonghyun probably shouldn’t ask, but, “He talks to you about me?”

She nods. “You’re all he talks about. You and the others. Mostly you, though.” She hesitates yet again, before going on, “He said you’re going to Japan. I thought maybe we’d get a break from filming, but I don’t know.”

Jonghyun’s stomach is doing this weird flying-falling thing, but he ignores it, fighting to keep the smile off his face and swallowing the million questions that bubble up, because they’re all things he should be asking Taemin, not other people. “What about you guys, are you making a comeback? Don’t tell me they sent you on this show for nothing.”

“Next month.”

Silence again. The clock ticks and heels click down the hallway and someone sticks their head in the door to tell Naeun they’re almost ready for her. Which means Taemin is almost here. Jonghyun hasn’t seen him since he slammed the door in his face. Half a week in the dark, and now he can feel everything inside him bending towards the light.

“What does Taeminnie say about me?” Jonghyun says in a rush. “Other than that I’m weird.”

Naeun needs a moment to think about it.

“Just every day stuff,” she tells him finally. “Like…He says he hates getting up alone. He checks if you’re asleep when he has to get up because you never sleep, but then he hates you because you always are. Something like that?” She shakes her head, laughing at herself. “Sorry, it made sense when he said it.”

“What are you doing here?” Taemin says now.

_Taeminnie._

Jonghyun swings around to look at him. For one long second Taemin looks right back, meeting his eyes, and then he leaves Jonghyun cold, stepping past him and busying himself with gathering his stuff, saying good night to Naeun.

“Jinki hyung sent me to kidnap you,” he tells Taemin’s back, pretending he can’t see it tensing up more with each word. “He’s the one paying for dinner so you don’t have to be nice to me, but you’re stuck.”

For the first fifteen minutes, Taemin gives Jonghyun the silent treatment. He slams his door and jerks his seatbelt on and starts staring out the window before Jonghyun has even put the key in the ignition. When Jonghyun turns on the radio Taemin turns it off. They could do this all night, on and off and on and off, but Jonghyun leaves it. He doesn’t say anything, either, when Taemin rolls down his window with the air-conditioning still on full blast, or when Taemin props his dirty shoe up against the dash. Jonghyun can survive not hearing Taemin’s voice for a while longer. Just looking at him his enough, snatching glances at him in between watching the road. He’s still wearing makeup. Maybe by the time he gets back he’ll forget to wash it off, and when he goes to shower in the morning he’ll freak himself out, looking in the mirror. And Jonghyun won’t be there to see it. Back home, not back to the dorm.

He can see Taemin right now.

He could kiss him right now. Smear his lip-gloss. Taste it.

Out of nowhere Taemin says, “What did you two talk about?”

“You.” Jonghyun just barely catches the face Taemin makes before Taemin does, turning further towards his window to hide it from Jonghyun. Jonghyun reaches over and pinches his cheek, just so Taemin will make that unhappy noise. He doesn’t knock Jonghyun’s hand away, though. “Are you scared hyung embarrassed you or something?”

“It’s okay this time since it was her.”

There’s that feeling again, hot under Jonghyun’s skin and thick on his tongue. Jonghyun waits it out, clenching the steering wheel. At least he knows how stupid it is now, at least Taemin told him that. He can tell Jonghyun again any time now.

“She said you guys talk about me,” Jonghyun tries.

Taemin shoots him a look, one Jonghyun can’t read for once. “We talk about work.” He shifts, crossing his arms, foot slipping down to the floor with a thud and leaving a dusty footprint. Jonghyun is going to hate him for it later when he’s cleaning it off, but right now all it means to him is ‘Taeminnie was here.’ “I don’t even get why Jinki hyung wanted to do this,” Taemin mutters, just loud enough that it’s not to himself. “It’s not like I won’t be back for comebacks and stuff. Plus we’re going to Japan like next month.”

Jonghyun is practically floating on air as he counters like normal, “What about you? You’re just using him for food, huh.”

And almost immediately Taemin rewards him with, “Hyung said he’d buy me hanwoo.”

“He told me he didn’t tell you anything.” Jonghyun pauses, unsure. Then, so carefully, “He can buy me soju, then. I decided to move out too.”

Taemin goes still. In a minute Jonghyun will let himself look again, once Taemin is ready to meet his eyes. In a minute. For now he has the steering wheel to hold onto.

“I guess that makes sense,” Taemin says finally.

Silence again. Jonghyun could reach for the radio again, see if Taemin turns it off this time.

“It’ll probably be really late by the time we’re done,” he says, heart pounding out his chest all of the sudden.

“Not if you’re drinking.”

Jonghyun won’t, then.

“Your parents go to bed at ten.” Jonghyun takes his life in his hands and reaches for Taemin, not to pinch him but to stroke his hair. Taemin stiffens, then leans into Jonghyun’s touch ever so slightly. He lets Jonghyun tuck it behind his ear even as it burns red, and does nothing to stop Jonghyun from saying, “Stay over tonight.”

When he catches Taemin’s eye Taemin only lasts a few seconds before he has to go back to his window. This time it’s a smile he’s trying and failing to hide, a real one, so cute Jonghyun could die right here.

“You make it sound like it’s not my room too.”

Dinner passes in a blur of Taemin’s smiles, Taemin’s laughs, Taemin’s face and his eyes and his lips, stained with sauce he lets Jonghyun wipe off with his thumb. His chipmunk cheeks, stuffed with meat, including the piece he let Jonghyun feed him, that particular way he holds his chopsticks, those tiny happy noises he makes as he eats that would probably make Jonghyun want to murder anyone else, the way he whines at Jonghyun, same as he’s always done, _Don’t overcook mine, hyung. Meat is meant to be red._

The way home crawls, red light after red light, Taemin in the corner of his eye the whole time, in his rear view mirror if he angles it just wrong, squashed between Kibum and Jinki in the backseat. Jonghyun spends an eternity alone at the intersection in front of Taemin’s parents’ building, but Taemin doesn’t remind him to turn and he doesn’t say anything when Jonghyun goes straight. Once Jonghyun parks Taemin almost climbs into Jinki’s lap piling out of the car, and in the elevator up to the dorm Minho tells Taemin that no one ever plays Pro Evo with him anymore.

It’s only been a week for Minho. It’s been five million years for Jonghyun, and in all that time no one ever made his heart flutter or burst or break, but it kept beating, and it’ll keep beating if he sits here on the couch with Minho between him and Taemin, and watches Minho’s team completely destroy Taemin’s for the fiftieth time. Fifty-fifth. Sixty millionth.

“You’re not bored of winning, Minho-yah?” Jonghyun says finally.

“No.”

Yeah, that was a stupid question. Taemin laughs in spite himself and sneaks Jonghyun a smile, so cute that Jonghyun survives another forty-five minutes of soccer on it alone. Kibum gave it up ages ago, shutting himself up in his room with his computer and headphones, and Jinki doesn’t last much longer, tripping over cords and banging off walls on his way to bed. Finally Minho presses his controller into Jonghyun’s hands and says, “Just turn it off if you don’t feel like playing. If I stare at the screen any longer I feel like my eyes are going to fall out of my head.” He ruffles Taemin’s hair. “Night, Taeminnie.”

And then he’s gone and it’s just the two of them. Jonghyun doesn’t want to play anymore. He wants to run his fingers through Taemin’s hair, feel how soft and smooth Taemin’s skin is, draw Taemin into his lap and hold him tight, tell him he loves him and let Taemin deal with it. But Taemin keeps his eyes on the screen, and somehow his voice as he says, “Hyung,” nails Jonghyun to his seat.

“Mm.”

Jonghyun mashes buttons at random. It’s fine, that’s what Taemin’s been doing all night.

Finally Taemin goes on, “You liked Naeunnie, right?”

“It would’ve been hard not to.”

“Would you mind doing an episode?” Jonghyun’s stomach twists and the answer buzzes his under skin and rushes in his blood. Taemin clears his throat and traps Jonghyun in the corner of his eye. “They want to film at our dorm at some point. Chuseok, maybe?”

“Like you’re taking her home to your family?” Jonghyun gets out, voice too sharp. He takes a breath. “What am I supposed to be, your father?”

Taemin throws him a look. “Am I Yoogeun?”

_You’re you and I don’t want to share. Don’t make me._

“You put up with calling Kibummie mom but I don’t think you ever called me dad.” Jonghyun pinches Taemin’s cheek, but then he has Taemin’s skin under his fingertips, Taemin shying away from his touch like it hurts. Maybe it did, maybe he did it too hard, but Taemin’s hurting Jonghyun more, making him say what they both know. “We’ll both be gone by then, anyway.”

“If you don’t want to do it, then fine.”

Taemin turns back to the game. The clock’s almost run down and neither of them have scored yet. Jonghyun doesn’t even know where the ball is.

“I didn’t say that, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun begins.

“You never do.”

Jonghyun’s mouth goes dry. “What?”

“You don’t have to do everything I want, hyung,” Taemin tells him in this weird voice. “If you don’t want to then don’t.”

“I have your permission not to~?”

When Jonghyun reaches for him again Taemin ducks away, eyes flashing. He snaps, “I’m not a baby. Stop treating me like one.”

“I don’t want to fight, Taeminnie.” Because Jonghyun can’t live through another week like this. Because he wants to talk to Taemin until Taemin falls asleep and wake up to Taemin eating all of his food, Taemin’s scent in their shower and Taemin in his clothes, even if he never steals them on purpose. He wants Taemin to smile at him right now. Laugh, look at him like he’s stupid again. Just look at him. “There, happy? I said I don’t want to,” comes out of Jonghyun in a rush. It’s not funny. “Please don’t stay mad. These last few days were really hard for me.”

Taemin slides off the couch and coils the cord round and round his controller, crawling over to Minho’s PlayStation, searching for the power button with his ass in the air. Jonghyun hasn’t figured out how not to stare when Taemin says, knees digging into his chest, voice stabbing into Jonghyun’s, “I meant it’s okay if you don’t like me back. It’s okay so hurry up and reject me. Then we can go back to normal.”

He says that, but before Jonghyun can even reply he’s on his feet again, passing by the couch blindly and walking right into Jonghyun’s controller cord, ripping it out of its plug. Taemin stumbles, but Jonghyun catches him before he can fall. He should be letting him go, not drawing him in, winding his arms around Taemin’s waist and burying his face in his stomach. Taemin’s breathing hitches, then quickens under Jonghyun’s cheek, hands closing over Jonghyun’s shoulders like he’s going to push him away. Jonghyun holds him tighter, heart thundering in his ears.

“I do mind,” he says into Taemin’s shirt. “I hate seeing you with her. Divorce her.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, Taeminnie. I’m not just saying that so you’ll stop being mad, I really am. There are so many things I hold back, I don’t even know if it’s for you or for me. I should have told you.”

For one long moment, Taemin doesn’t move and Jonghyun doesn’t breathe. Then his hand slides up Jonghyun’s neck and into his hair, petting it, playing with it, gentle and clumsy and small and warm and _Taeminnie,_ and there’s air in Jonghyun’s lungs again, Taemin’s scent filling him up to bursting.

“Hyung…”

“It’s not just her, it’s anyone else,” Jonghyun goes on blindly. “I want you to be mine.”

“Hyung—”

“Don’t say anything, Taeminnie.” Jonghyun has to say it, before Taemin can tell Jonghyun any of the things he would die to hear and there’s no way back for either of them. He fists his hands in Taemin’s shirt to keep them off Taemin, but the whisper of skin underneath sets his blood on fire. “Think about it first. If you really want to be with me, if you can handle it. The real thing is different.”

So fast Jonghyun’s head spins, Taemin comes back at him with, “Different how?” And before he can even begin with the first thing, because there are millions of them, Taemin’s fingers knot in his hair, tipping Jonghyun’s head back until their eyes meet. Taemin’s are so dark Jonghyun kind of forgets how to breathe. “Show me,” Taemin says, halfway between a plea and a command, when he doesn’t even know what he’s asking. He doesn’t know what he’s doing to Jonghyun. “How else am I supposed to know if I can take it?”

Jonghyun drags Taemin to his mouth, kissing his hand, the inside of his wrist, his soft stomach, wherever he can find skin, yanking his shirt out of the way, hard enough that something rips, and just like that, he has a lapful of Taemin. Warm and soft and pressed flush to Jonghyun’s body, arms locked around his shoulders, gasping in his ear when Jonghyun sinks his teeth into his neck, letting out this low desperate whine as Jonghyun presses his tongue to his skin and sucks. The coordi noonas can cover up the mark he leaves the same way they hide that cute mole on Taemin’s nose. If they saw Taemin right now they’d hate him for being this pretty without their help. Beautiful. There aren’t even words for how he looks to Jonghyun. Face scrubbed clean, hair clinging to his forehead, damp from the five minute shower that cost him twenty goals earlier and now from sweat, circles under his eyes from all the sleep he didn’t get without Jonghyun there, pink cheeks and pinker lips, flushed and trembling and leaning in until his mouth meets Jonghyun’s. Their first kiss, maybe Taemin’s first real one ever. Jonghyun slips his hands up to hold Taemin’s face and keeps his eyes open long enough to watch Taemin’s slide shut, then falls into it, slower and softer and sweeter than he can bear almost. Then Taemin makes this tiny broken noise and his teeth close over Jonghyun’s bottom lip, biting down just too hard, and there’s no more almost. Jonghyun opens his mouth for Taemin’s tongue, touching his own to it, teasing, flirting, deep and wet and filthy, like a hot wire to Jonghyun’s heart, straight to his dick.

Taemin only draws away to breathe, panting against Jonghyun’s lips, pressing back into Jonghyun’s hands when Jonghyun slides them up his shirt, soft smooth skin everywhere. When Taemin leans in again Jonghyun meets him halfway, spreading his fingers over the small of Taemin’s back and pulling him in until all he can feel is him. Taemin’s tongue in Jonghyun’s mouth, his fingers sneaking under Jonghyun’s collar, dick pushing into Jonghyun’s stomach, so hard from just one kiss. So desperate and eager, bringing Jonghyun the rest of the way there, rocking against him, shifting and squirming in Jonghyun’s lap until he’s sitting on Jonghyun’s dick. At the feel of it pressed to his ass Taemin moans, helpless, too loud. He has it coming when Jonghyun tips him over onto the couch, squawk of surprise lost in Jonghyun’s mouth as he sinks between Taemin’s thighs. His hands find Jonghyun’s shoulders, hanging onto him as Jonghyun kisses and licks and bites down his neck and shoulders, so soft and warm and Taemin-smelling, fingers pressing bruises into Jonghyun’s flesh when Jonghyun moves against him. Jonghyun builds up a rhythm, slow and sure, so hot his whole body is burning up, Taemin’s thighs squeezing his hips, one leg hooking around his waist, heel digging into his ass, telling Jonghyun, _More, hyung. More more more more._

Taemin. Taemin. Taemin.

_“Hyung.”_

It takes everything Jonghyun has to keep his hips still, abandon Taemin’s scent and raise his face from Taemin’s skin to meet his eyes. Taemin needs a second to get his open, and that’s too long to go without kissing him again, his lips, his nose, his chin, the furl of his ear, burning bright red.

“Do you want to stop, Taeminnie? Or slow down. Whatever you want,” Jonghyun murmurs into it, just as Taemin finds the breath to tell him, “Fuck me.”

Jonghyun goes white hot.

“Not here, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun gets out, which is how he finds out he can even speak. He should have said, _Not tonight. After I’ve taken you out and held your hand and told you I love you every way I know how, don’t let me until then._

Taemin reaches up to comb Jonghyun’s hair out of his eyes, staring up into his face. “Our room.”

As Jonghyun lifts away Taemin arches into him and sends sparks flying down Jonghyun’s spine, wrapping his other leg around him, holding Jonghyun’s face in both his hands. Jonghyun turns into his palm, pressing a kiss to it.

“You’re not thinking,” he makes himself say.

“I know what I’m doing, hyung.” At the look Jonghyun gives him Taemin insists, “I’m not just saying that, I really do.”

Really.

“You mean you’ve touched yourself there.”

All he has to do is say it and he can see it. Taemin folded in half on his bed with his hand between his legs, pretty fingers circling his pink hole, toes curling at the stretch, squirming into different positions, figuring out how to get deeper inside himself. And then Taemin has to go and ruin it, telling him in the stupidest voice he can muster, “No, hyung. Every night I stay out I’m with another guy.” So Jonghyun has to bite his neck. Hard. Taemin’s laugh breaks into a moan, fingers clenching and unclenching in Jonghyun’s shirt, and this time when he gets his breath back it’s, “I thought of you.”

Jonghyun scrapes his teeth over the skin of Taemin’s neck and buries his face in Taemin’s shoulder, opening his mouth on it to say, “When all those guys who don’t exist were fucking you?”

He thrusts against Taemin so that their dicks push together, no relief, just Taemin Taemin Taemin. Again and the force of it pushes Taemin’s body up the couch, foot catching on the headrest and hands sinking into Jonghyun’s hair, voice breaking into a whine, “When I was fucking myself, so please.”

Okay. That was all Jonghyun wanted. He can control himself now. He can be good. He has to be, this is Taemin. Except the only thing he can think to point out is, “My dick is bigger than your fingers, Taeminnie.”

“Good.”

Taemin breaks into a smile at the look that puts on Jonghyun’s face, bright, dizzying. He needs Jonghyun’s help climbing to his feet, then some more staying on them, clinging to his hand as they pass down the hallway to their room. Once the door snicks shut behind them he pushes Jonghyun into it, kissing him and kissing him and kissing him, breathless and frantic, then slow and deep. He moans again when Jonghyun fucks his tongue into his mouth, louder at the feel of Jonghyun’s dick pushing into his thigh, arching into his hands as Jonghyun drags them down his spine and slips them under the waistband of Taemin’s sweats to cup his ass, smooth and firm and made to fill his palms, just asking to be squeezed. He curls his fingers and finds Taemin’s hole, tiny and hot, blood pounding, dick throbbing, everything gone red. Taemin breaks away, sobbing for air, hiding his face in Jonghyun’s neck, only word he has left hot and wet against Jonghyun’s skin. “Bed.”

He lets Jonghyun lay him down on it and undress him, lets Jonghyun cover every inch of his body in kisses as he bares it to the cool air, lets Jonghyun tell him over and over, “You’re so beautiful,” and, “You don’t even know,” and, “Won’t keep you waiting again.” He tells Jonghyun where he keeps his lube, too, like Jonghyun hasn’t had to put it away before, and he slicks up Jonghyun’s dick himself, lying along his side and watching his face, hand like satin, soft and slippery, too small for his fingers to close around Jonghyun and still so hot and tight he could die. And then Taemin climbs on top of him, lining Jonghyun up so that the head of his dick kisses Taemin’s hole and the tip is just barely pressing in, and maybe he does.

“Taeminnie,” he gasps, gripping Taemin’s hips tight enough to bruise, holding him up, watching his face twist in pleasure-pain. “Taeminnie, slowly, or it’ll hurt.”

“I want it to.”

“Taeminnie.”

“Want to feel it.”

_“Taeminnie.”_

Inch by inch, as slow as Jonghyun can bear, so much slower than Taemin wants it, Taemin takes him in, so hot and tight it’s like Jonghyun can’t even fit air into his lungs, until finally his weight settles on Jonghyun’s thighs and it’s okay for Jonghyun to let him go. He reaches up to comb Taemin’s hair out of his face, like silk against his skin. Taemin sucks air in, mouth formed into a prefect o, fingernails digging into Jonghyun’s chest, hand planted over his heart. Maybe Taemin can feel how hard it’s beating, all for him. Maybe he can hear it.

“So deep. I’ve never, I didn’t know you could get this deep.” Each word hits Jonghyun like lightning, telling him to move and fuck and _own._ “I feel like you’re going to poke out my stomach.”

Jonghyun rubs his hand over it, soft and cute and perfectly, unfairly flat, but then Taemin tangles their fingers together, pressing Jonghyun’s hand into his skin like he’s trying to show him, breath shortening under Jonghyun’s touch, hole clenching around Jonghyun’s dick. It takes everything Jonghyun didn’t even know he had to keep his hips still, to wait for Taemin to move on him. Which he does, hips working in tight little circles like he’s still trying to take him deeper, then pushing himself up until Jonghyun is left with Taemin clenching around the tip, dick burning hotter in the cool air. He bites back his shout as Taemin takes him in again, but Taemin cries out, loud enough that Jonghyun should be covering his mouth, reminding him Jinki exists, not telling him, “So good for me.” Not lying there, dying for a kiss but letting Taemin build up a rhythm, bed squeaking beneath them as Taemin rides him, small hands clenched on the headboard, dick dripping pre-come, skin slick with sweat. “Mine.”

“Yours,” Taemin agrees breathlessly.

“If I had kissed you at that beach—”

“I would’ve let you. I would’ve let you fuck me on it.” Taemin’s words sear into Jonghyun, Taemin naked on white sand, sun on his skin, waves crashing and Taemin’s breathing, tight and hitched, this same look on his face. “Some nights I almost got up and got in bed with you. But then you’d just have thought I couldn’t sleep or something. Like before, when you’d hold me.”

In their first dorm. And in this one, crowded together in Taemin’s bed, biting his tongue when his arm fell asleep under Taemin’s head. Before they both started sleeping naked.

“Half those times I woke up hard,” Jonghyun confesses, because somehow he can still talk when he’s harder than he’s ever been in his life, and he’s inside Taemin, and all he has to do is slide his hand down Taemin’s spine to the cleft of his ass, and he can feel Taemin stretched around him.

Taemin leans into his touch, teeth sinking into his lip. “I did too. That’s why I stopped letting you do it.”

“You’ll let me now.” Jonghyun closes his hand over the nape of Taemin’s neck and drags him down for something so close to a kiss, lips crushed together, tongues touching. “There are better guys out there, but don’t try to find one. Don’t even look at them. I’ll give you what you need, I’ll be so good for you. I’ll do everything.”

“Let me do half,” Taemin demands, eyes so dark Jonghyun could fall into them. Then, lips brushing Jonghyun’s with each word, “Is this what you needed?”

Jonghyun moans helplessly. “Need you.”

Taemin’s muscles give when he tries to lift away again and he collapses on top of Jonghyun, skin-on-skin everywhere all of the sudden. Jonghyun plants his heels into the mattress, fucking up into him as Taemin pants in his ear, “Take me.” Jonghyun takes him by the hips, takes his weight, takes his kisses, his tongue in his mouth, his teeth in his neck, all his demands, _harder, please, oh God, hyung. Jonghyunnie hyung. I’m gonna—_

Jonghyun takes Taemin in his hand and Taemin gasps, hips jerking, tightening around Jonghyun, come spilling between them, hot and wet.

_Taeminnie!_

Everything goes white.

“I’m still moving out.”

Taemin is watching Jonghyun’s face so carefully. Jonghyun brushes his hair out of his eyes and leans in for his good morning kiss, and when he lifts away Taemin smiles at him, shy and secret. They have maybe half an hour left to themselves before Jinki knocks on the door and asks Taemin if he’s hungry for hangover stew. He doesn’t even bother trying with Kibum anymore and Minho leaves too early in the morning, but Taemin never turns down food. As for Jonghyun…

“I am, too.”

Right away Taemin is explaining, “I can’t say I’m going to and then not do it, I can’t do that to my mom,” like he was just waiting for Jonghyun to say something.

Jonghyun hasn’t even told his yet, but he couldn’t either. And besides, “Isn’t it a little early to start living together~?”

Taemin scrunches his nose up at him, another one of those faces that means Jonghyun is being stupid on purpose.

“We already fucked.” Three times last night and once already this morning, and Jonghyun’s dick might have stirred watching Taemin’s lips form that word, but still. Would it kill Taemin to say the right thing for once in his life? If he keeps this up, he’s going to kill Jonghyun. Like he’s read his mind, Taemin goes on, “It’s been two years and we’re both still alive. Longer, if you count our old dorm. Plus I already know everything that annoys me about you and I still like you.”

He flops onto his back like that settles it, even though it’s besides the point and it’s too late, when they’ll both be leaving this room soon. Except during comebacks, Taemin said. And when they’re too busy to make it home. Or maybe when they stay out too late. Jonghyun wriggles closer, propping himself up on his elbow and gathering Taemin’s hand up in his, playing with his fingers.

“How long, Taeminnie?” he says.

For the longest time, Taemin just stares up at him. “What about you?”

“Since we moved in here. Around then.” Jonghyun fell asleep inside Taemin and came over his hand half an hour ago, but somehow the confession makes him feel naked all over again. “It took me a while to admit it to myself.”

“And it’s taken you this long to do anything about it?” Taemin says. He narrows his eyes at Jonghyun, reaching up to fit his hand to his cheek, finger pressing into the corner of his eye. “Sometimes I thought you might like me back, but then I thought that if you did, you would say something. So then I’d go back to thinking you didn’t.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you think too much.”

Jonghyun can feel how stupid his smile looks as it forms, and that’s before Taemin squishes it, pushing his thumb into the corner of his mouth. “Did you really never think I liked you?”

“No.”

Taemin’s hand hits the pillow with a thwump, and he turns his face into it just to say, “I did.”

The tip of his ear is glowing red. Jonghyun strokes his finger along it, tucking his hair behind it, stopping himself for as long as he can from saying, “You still haven’t answered me, Taeminnie,” which is maybe fifteen seconds. He noses in closer, smoothing his hand down Taemin’s back. “It’s okay if it hasn’t been as long for you.”

“It has,” Taemin contradicts him immediately, voice muffled. “I decided to move out to get over you finally. So it was about you, you were right about that.”

“I was wrong about everything else.”

Jonghyun only says it because he means it, but it figures that Taemin only rolls into the open to shoot him yet another look. But then his hand finds Jonghyun’s, lying on the pillow between them, holding on tight as he gets out, “I should have told you first. I was scared you’d want to know why, or that you’d get mad at me or something.” He wrinkles his nose at Jonghyun, half smiling. “Honestly, I think I was more scared you wouldn’t. But then you did and it sucked.”

“For me, too.”

Almost before he can finish Taemin is saying, “I’m sorry, hyung. Really, really.” He presses in for a kiss, soft and slow, says into Jonghyun’s mouth, shy and dirty sweet, “Ask me how much and I can show you.”

He pushes his thigh between Jonghyun’s under the blanket, so warm and soft pressed to Jonghyun’s dick, getting him hard. Yeah, he’s really going to kill Jonghyun. 

But right now, words. Talking. Feelings. Who knows when he’ll have Taemin here with him again, lying in his arms, watching his mouth form each word like he’s trying to get there before Jonghyun does.

“It wasn’t just that I was going to be alone,” Jonghyun tells him. “It hurts when you don’t tell me things. It makes me feel like you don’t need me. Like I can’t do anything for you.”

Taemin stares into his eyes like he’s trying to find some way in. When that doesn’t work he sticks with the obvious. “You do everything, though.”

Jonghyun closes his eyes and leans in for another lingering kiss. “So do you.”

He’s not even lying. If Taemin tries to accuse him of it he doesn’t know what he’ll do, what parts of himself he’ll have to drag out into the light, how deep he’ll have to let Taemin see inside him. Taemin’s smile hits him like the sun bursting through the clouds, sudden, dizzying, breaking Jonghyun wide open.

“You’d be bored without me,” Taemin guesses.

“I’d be alone.” Jonghyun presses his thumb into the tip of Taemin’s nose, just barely squishing it. “You don’t even know how lonely I’d be.”

But he has Taemin, so he’s not. And as long as he hangs onto him, as long as Taemin keeps making these faces at him, he never will be.

“I should’ve just confessed,” Taemin says instead of replying. He smiles again. “I guess you’re gonna have to start making more money, hyung. Hotels are expensive.”

Now it’s Jonghyun’s turn to roll over and play hard to get. He gives up on convincing himself he’s not playing at all the second Taemin follows him, tangling their legs together and laying his head on Jonghyun’s chest, so soft and warm and just impossible, but Taemin doesn’t need to know that.

“So are you. Let’s just go half. You don’t need hyung to pay for you anymore.”

Taemin raises his head to meet Jonghyun’s eyes, trailing his fingers down Jonghyun’s stomach. “If you do I’ll let you do whatever you want.”

Maybe Jonghyun’s whole body goes hot.

“You would anyway,” he manages.

“Maybe not~”

Maybe, but Taemin skims his fingers over Jonghyun’s skin and closes them around him, hand all hot and sure, just asking to get fucked. Jonghyun knows that look too now.

“Taeminnie.”

Taemin hums into his skin, pressing kisses down his neck and chest, hot and wet, but Jonghyun has to say this.

“Don’t say that kind of thing to anyone else, ever. Okay? Even if we break up and you find someone else, don’t.”

“Only you,” Taemin promises faithfully, completely missing the point, but Jonghyun said it. Now he can roll Taemin over and brace himself over him, lying between his thighs and pressing him into the mattress with his weight. Taemin arches up for a kiss. Jonghyun meets his lips halfway, falling into it, tongue and teeth.

“Don’t break up with me,” comes out of Jonghyun’s mouth totally without his permission, but then it’s lost in Taemin’s, so it’s okay.

He doesn’t have to open his eyes to see the look Taemin is giving him. He can feel it. “Why would I?”

“If you’re mine, then I’m yours,” Jonghyun says into his neck. “Be careful with me, Taemin-ah. I break really easily.”

“And I break everything~?”

Yes. No. Taemin holds Jonghyun with his legs and his arms and his everything, hands coming up to stroke his hair, so gentle it almost hurts.

“You can just put me back together if you do,” Jonghyun decides for both of them. “I might hurt you, though. Sharp pieces.”

“What if I put everything back in the wrong place? I should study for this.”

“It was a metaphor, Taemin-ah.”

Taemin’s hands fist in Jonghyun’s hair, dragging his head up until their eyes meet, pushing his hips against Jonghyun’s like he’s trying to remind him he has a dick and it’s hard, so hard, and Taemin needs to be fucked with it. He smiles up at the look on Jonghyun’s face, telling him like he shouldn’t even have to, “And this isn’t.”

That’s so stupid in that way only Taemin gets, which is probably why Jonghyun can’t help it. He smiles back. And moves.


End file.
